Drive-in service machine



May 29, 1962 s. E. MCCLINTOCK 3,036,660

DRIVE-IN SERVICE MACHINE Filed May 29, 1959 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 QQQW'I O.

INVENTOR 5/1 ermcm E. M C/fifiac/L.

AITORNEY5.

May 29, 1962 s. E. MCCLINTOCK DRIVE-IN SERVICE MACHINE 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed May 29, 1959 INVENTOR Sherman 6 M C/l flfOC/f %Mda ATTORNEYS,

May 29, 1962 E- M CLINTOCK DRIVE-IN SERVICE MACHINE Filed May 29, 1959 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR Sher/770 E, M C/Dflbc/c,

ATTORNEYS,

assignor of one-half to Paul J. Stine, Orlando, Fla. Filed May 29, 1959, Ser. No. 816,926 3 Claims. (Cl. 186-1) This invention relates to a drive-in service machine of the general type disclosed in my Patent 2,613,762, granted October 14, 1952, and my Patent 2,896,748, granted July 28, 1959. Machines of this general description are for the purpose of delivering various types of articles, such as deposits, including checks, money orders, bank deposit books, etc. to banks; articles of clothing to a laundry; or various other articles from one station to another. One of the stations may be located at a curb .01 in a parking lot or a driveway, whereby the article can be deposited directly from a motor vehicle by the occupant thereof to the station without alighting from the motor vehicle. This design permits deposit and removal from either side of the tower, allowing cars to approach in opposite directions on either side of the tower, thereby making the left side or drivers side the approach side. The article is then conveyed from the station in which it has been deposited to a passageway, and after traversing the passageway to a place where the articles may be removed and processed, the conveyor of the machine is reversed and the processed article is returned to the first named station.

In some cases the machine may be constructed without the enclosed passageway, two towers only being used with an opening connecting them; or the machine may consist of a single tower having openings spaced from each other.

A principal object of the machine is to simplify the construction of machines of this type and to provide positive door opening means and door locking means.

Another object is to provide separate door opening and door locking means operable in accordance with the position of the carrier or article holding means.

A further object is to provide sliding door means which means is located in a horizontal position away from each other to disclose the well access opening when the carrier has reached its discharge position in the tower, and which automatically closes when the carrier is lowered in the tower.

An additional object is the provision of a vertically movable floor or supporting means in the carrier, and means for causing the floor to move vertically from a lower to a higher position in the carrier in accordance with the position of the carrier in the tower, whereby to facilitate the removal of the carrier contents or the placement of articles in the carrier at one or more stations.

Other objects will appear hereinafter throughout the specification.

Referring to the drawings:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevation partly broken away;

FIGURE 2 is a front elevation of the upper portions of a tower, the tower casing being partly broken away;

FIGURE 3 is an enlarged detail view of one of the door antifriction supports, the door being broken away;

FIGURE 4 is a side elevation of the carrier, showing in dotted lines the stationary cam for actuating the carrier floor;

FIGURE 5 is a front elevation of the carrier shown in FIGURE 4;

FIGURE 6 is a vertical section taken on the line 6-6 of FIGURE 5; and

FIGURE 7 is a vertical section of a tower, showing one of the doors partly broken away and the means for locking and unlocking the same, with the door supporting means omitted.

3,936,660 Patented May 29, 1962 fire Referring generally to the structure shown in the several figures, and in particular to that shown in FIGURE 1, it will be understood that the curb tower shown at the left of the figure may be duplicated by providing a similar tower at the right of the figure, the two towers being of the general types of those shown in my patent and application identified above. It will be appreciated, however, that the invention is not limited to a pair of towers, inasmuch as one tower will be suflicient for many uses, as one of the terminals will ordinarily be located within a building or other inclosure that will not require the sliding doors or door locking means hereinafter described. Either the short tower shown at the right in FIGURE 1 without doors may be used, or if the exit to the central tunnel is convenient for the removal or deposit of articles, no second tower will be necessary.

It will be further understood that the carrier chains to be described are driven by a reversible electric motor controlled by push buttons or drum switch at opposite ends of the tunnel or on one or both towers, in a manner well known in the art, as taught by the constructions illustrated in my patent and application. Such reversible motor and its connections to the chains are conventional and form no part of the invention, except with the struc ture taken as a whole. FIGURE 1 of my Patent 2,613,762 shows a motor drive means that may be employed in the present machine.

The structural mechanism includes a customers tower A that may be located adjacent the curb 10 of a street 12. This tower, however, may be located at any convenient place, but is preferably located as shown, or in a parking lot within reasonable distance of the bank or store to which it is desired to convey the goods. As indicated before, said goods may consist of checks, drafts, or money orders, with or without a bank book, where it is desired to make a deposit in a bank; or wearing apparel, such as shirts, dresses, suits, etc. when it is desired to have them processed by a laundry or dry cleaning plant. Any other goods may be transported by this system, provided, of course, that they are of a size that can be safely handled by the carrier.

Letter B designates 'an attendants or tellers tower, de pending upon whether the machine is to be used for a store or bank, respectively, which may be located within a suitable inclosure 14. The sidewalk 16 or other intervening surfaced construction separates the towers. The customers tower has an opening 18, best seen in FIGURE 2. The towers are connected to each other by a tunnel C.

Extending through the tunnel and into each tower is a pair of endless chains 18, only one of which. is shown in FIGURE 1, inasmuch as the chains are located and constructed in the same manner, and each chain is attached to the opposite sides of the carrier 20, and between it and the sides of the towers and tunnel, as described hereinafter.

Limit switches in the towers to disconnect current to the reversible motor and the circuit connections have been omitted, since these are conventional and may be the same as or similar to those described and shown in my Patent 2,613,762 noted above. The carrier is provided with rollers 22, as shown in FIGURES 4 and 5, which roll on suitable angle iron guides, such as shown in FIGURES 4 and 5 of my above noted application. Other guide means may be substituted therefor.

The invention herein described and claimed does not reside in any particular motor drive means, or guide means, but in the structure hereinafter described in combination with any suitable reversible motor drive means and carrier guide means that will adequately serve the purpose, and there are many different types of these that may be used, as disclosed in my application or patent supra, for example.

The sides 24 of the carrier are each provided with a supporting angle member 26 having a pivot pin 29 that is adapted to be held by one of the links of a chain 18 on each side of the carrier. It will be noted, as seen in FIG- URE 1, that each supporting angle member is located centrally as regards the front and back of the carrier, and at a point nearer the top than the bottom of the carrier, so as to tend to prevent tipping of the carrier as it traverses the vertical towers. The connections to the chains are similar or the same as that shown in FIGURE 3 of my application above identified. The rollers 22 may only engage bottom guides when passing through tunnel C, but may engage a pair of vertical guides in the towers, as disclosed in FIGURE 3 of my application supra.

As distinguished from the constructions shown in my patent and application, the carrier is not projected forwardly in either tower; nor is a carrier lid opened at the terminals of the carrier.

The vertical guides for the carrier rollers in tower A are illustrated at 28 in FIGURE 7.

The front 30 of the carrier is provided with a pair of inclined members or guides 32, 34 forming an apex 36, providing an inverted V as seen in FIGURES 2 and 5.

The upper portion of one or both towers (only one being shown for convenience) is provided with spaced boxlike housings 38 and 40 forming the opening 4-2 for the sliding doors 44 and 46. These doors slide horizontally from the position shown in FIGURE 2, where the opening is exposed to provide access to the carrier 20, to a position to close the opening. As shown, these doors when in open position are substantially inclosed by the boxlike housings. When the doors are closed, by moving them toward each other until they meet, they close the opening 42, thus preventing access to the carrier.

Each door is provided with a downwardly extending leg 50, only one being shown in the broken away portion of FIGURE 2. This leg is preferably attached at 46, adjacent the meeting edge of each door, and extends downwardly with its free end provided with a roller 52.

As the chains 18 move the carrier upwardly in the tower, the rollers 52 at the base of each leg engage the guides 32, 34 and move the doors away from each other to the position shown in FIGURE 2.

However, before this door opening action can take place, each door must be unlocked. Each door (one only being shown for illustrative purposes) is provided on the underside of the top with an L-shaped member 54, as seen in FIGURE 7. A flange of the member is held by fastening means such as screws 56 to the underside of a door top, while the other flange 58 extends downwardly.

Each side of each boxlike housing is provided with a fixed link 61 mounted on the inside of each housing by screws 60. Adjacent the top and bottom of this link are pivots 62 and 64 for supporting the cross-links 66 and 68.

Cross-link 66 is provided with pivots 70 and 72, and cross-links 68 is provided with pivots 74 and 76, these four pivots being provided for the support of the vertically movable links 78 and 80.

Link 78 has an upper end 82 which when moved upwardly by gravity due to the weight of the longer link 80, engages behind the flange 58 of L-shaped member 54 and retains its door in closed position. Vertically movable link 80 is provided with a cam 84 at its lower end.

Each carrier side supporting angle member 28 is provided with a horizontal flange 86.

As the carrier rises in a tower the flange 86 on either side thereof, as seen in FIGURES 5 and 7, engages the cam 84 moving vertical link 80 upwardly. This causes the rightmost portions of cross-links to move upwardly and their leftmost ends to move downwardly. Such movements cause vertically movable link 78 to move downwardly, freeing upper end 82 from flange 58 on its door, the parts assuming the position shown in FIG- URE 7.

Immediately after the release of the doors, each leg 50 is engaged by the guides 32, 34 on the front of the carrier, and as the carrier moves upwardly the guides force the doors away from each other and hold them in this position, as shown in FIGURE 2, as long as the carrier remains in its upper position.

As the carrier is lowered, the doors are forced toward each other by the standard type door closers 88, one of which is shown in FIGURE 2, which are provided with springs or other conventional means, not shown, to return the doors to closed position. One of these is attached to each door, its spring being compressed by the opening action of each door.

The doors and arms are supported in a manner similar to the mounting of drawers on autifriction slide members, both doors being supported as shown in FIGURE 3. In this figure only one side of the door is shown. Two transversely extending members 90 are mounted on frame piece 91 shown in FIGURES 1 and 7. These L-shaped members are on the same horizontal level and are parallel to each other, one extending along the back of the tower and the other extending along the front of the tower, the two of them providing door supports for both doors.

Referring to FIGURE 3, bracket 92 is shown, to which is afiixed the inner raceway 94 for supporting the balls 96. The outer raceway 98 is mounted on the inner door sides. The brackets 92, raceways 94 and 98, are con tinuous, i.e. they extend along the sides of the doors and the vertical flanges of the L-shaped members for some distance so as to provide a rolling antifriction construction for each door. These supports are similar to the #1400 drawer slide made by Knape & Vogt Mfg. 00., Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mechanism is illustrated in FIGURES l, 4, 5 and 6 for raising the bottom of the carrier as the latter approaches the opening 42 of the tower, whereby the articles are raised upwardly in the carrier, so as to at least partially clear the front 30 thereof. Raising of the article-supporting bottom facilitates the removal, or the insertion, of the articles thereon.

On one of the side walls of the tower, if one is used, or on one side wall of both towers if two are used, is a stationary track member 99 which has a lower vertical portion 1% and an inclined upper portion 182, as seen in FIGURE 4.

As the carrier starts to raise in the tower, the roller 194 of arm 186, pivoted at 198, engages the vertical portion 1% of the track member 98. Then as the carrier continues to raise in the tower as propelled by chains 18, the roller engages the inclined portion 102, causing the roller to swing to the right as seen in FIGURE 4.

This movement forces the lower end of arm 106 to the left carrying. with it the link 1114 that is pivoted at 112 to the arm 106. Such movement causes bell-crank 116 through its pivotal connection 118 to rotate clockwise, as seen in FIG. 4. The bell-crank is fixed or splined to a rotary shaft 120 located in the carrier 29 below its vertically movable bottom 122, see FIGURE 6.

At the opposite end of the shaft 120, also as seen in FIGURE 6, is a second bell-crank 124, also splined to shaft 120. The free end of bell-crank 124 has a fixed projection or arm 126 provided with a pivot 128. Attached to this pivot is an actuating link 13% having one of its ends pivoted at 132 to a boss 134 fixed in a side of the carrier.

The free end of the actuating link is pivoted at 136 to a short link 138. The short link 138 is pivoted to a lazy tong linkage 140 at 142, the upper end of which is pivotally connected at 144 to the movable bottom 122. The lazy tong shown is guided in its vertical movements by pivots 142 and 144 which extend into the trough of the U-shaped guide. 146 fixed by screws or other fastening means to the side of the box.

Although only one actuating linkage and lazy tong linkage has been shown in FIGURE 6 for the sake of clarity, it will be expressly understood that there is a second actuating linkage, including a third bell-crank and lazy tong linkage on the opposite inner side of the carrier, exactly as shown in FIGURE 6, and it is actuated also by shaft 120. In other words, the parts shown in FIG- URE 6 adjacent one of the inner sides of the carrier is duplicated adjacent the opposite inner side of the carrier, a separate U-shaped guide being provided on this inner side, whereby the bottom is raised adjacent each of its side edges as the carrier raises in a. tower. When the carrier is lowered in the tower the parts resume their original position with the bottom in the lower portion of the carrier. Such action may be facilitated by attaching a spring, not shown, with one of its ends to the left side of the carrier, as seen in FIGURE 4, and its other end to the arm 106 at a point about half way from its pivot 108 to its roller 104.

It will be appreciated in view of the foregoing that there has been provided a drive-in service machine wherein a customer may deposit without alighting from an automotive vehicle articles on a carrier within a tower and later receive the articles after processing; that the tower doors are automatically unlocked and opened as the carrier approaches the top of the tower; and further, that the floor or bottom of the carrier is elevated at the time the carrier comes to rest in the tower opening.

It will further be understood that these operations are reversed as the carrier moves downwardly in the tower, at which time the carrier bottom descends to its lowest point in the carrier, while at the same time the tower doors are automatically closed and locked.

The operation of the carrier is performed by the endless pair of chains, which are driven by a reversible electric motor whose rotary movements in either direction are preferably controlled by push buttons or drum switch located either on the customers tower A or at the bank tellers or attendants tower B, or both, or at the opposite end of the tunnel from tower A. Limit switches, not shown, but of conventional design, may be used to stop the movement of the carrier by shutting ofi the motor, when the same reaches its limit of movement in either tower, or at the material discharge point. The spring 150 shown in FIG. 4 will bias the arm 106 for movement in a counterclockwise direction when not engaged by track member 99.

It will further be understood that only a customers tower may be used, or that a tower similar to tower A may be used in place of tower B.

The above description and drawings disclose a single embodiment of the invention, and specific language has been employed in describing the several figures. It will, nevertheless, be understood that no limitations of the scope of the invention are thereby contemplated, and that various alterations and modifications may be made such as would occur to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains.

I claim:

1. A drive-in-service machine comprising at least one tower, a tunnel connecting said tower, a traveling carrier adapted to move in said tunnel and tower, means for moving said carrier in said tunnel and tower in either direction, said tower having an opening, said carrier having a movable bottom adapted to be moved from a lowermost position to an uppermost position, means for actuating said movable bottom including cam means in said tower, lever means on said carrier, a lazy tong mechanism connected to said bottom, and means connecting said lever means to said lazy tong mechanism whereby to raise said bottom of said carrier as the same approaches said tower opening and lower said bottom in said carrier as said carrier moves downwardly in said tower.

2. The structure of claim 1 wherein said last named means includes linkage means mounted on the outside of said carrier, said linkage means being connected to said lever means and to said lazy tong mechanism.

3. The structure of claim 1 wherein said last named means includes linkage means, said linkage means being connected to said lever means and to said lazy tong mechanism.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 209,586 Richardson Nov. 5, 1878 715,464 Davies Dec. 9, 1902 1,051,729 Giles Jan. 28, 1913 1,914,128 James et al. June 13, 1933 2,704,609 Zeckendorf et al Mar. 22, 1955 2,827,130 Daifotes Mar. 18, 1958 2,896,748 McClintock July 28, 1959 

